Rules of professional betting and why most players do the opposite
Differences in professional and recreational betting
Purpose of betting
Let’s start with the obvious difference which is the purpose of betting. At the first glance of the window on this issue, the goals may seem similar, but this is not the case, especially in the context of objective rather than subjective facts. Seemingly, both professional and recreational player want to win their bets, but in the case of recreational play this is not realistic in the long term. Thus, it is a desire to win, a subjective rather than objective goal and pursued in accordance with best practices. Such a player, of course, can win in the short term, but in the long term it is not possible. Thus, the goal of a recreational player may be the excitement of watching a game, the desire to bet on his favorite team, winning his bet or all of them at once. For a professional betting player, emotions and cheering are irrelevant. A single bet doesn’t matter much either. What matters is profit in the long term. So, to some extent simplifying a bit, we can say that the goals of a recreational player are short-term and those of a professional player are long-term.
Bookmakers with whom bets are placed
Beginner players are usually looking for high bonuses, a nice site that is popular with other players. This type of player doesn’t pay much attention to the differences in the odds that are displayed. After all, the odds of 1.91 for the event of interest are almost the same as 1.94. The exact opposite is true. It is not nearly the same. An advanced player notices such differences and always chooses bookmakers with the lowest margin imposed on the odds, paying less attention to promotion, visual layer and other side factors. The exact amount of margin on the odds can be checked by anyone using sports betting calculators. Differences between bookmakers aimed at novice players and professional betting sites and exchanges can be really huge, and even a difference in odds of 0.1 makes a big difference in the long term. The large differences in odds between sites are due to a completely different business model, based on losing players in the case of recreational sites and based on dynamic odds in the case of professional betting sites.
Budget
This point is not so obvious. Let’s start with the over-enthusiastic players. In this case, the budget definitely needs to be at a moderate and preferably rather high level. Its amount, of course, depends strongly on the strategy of the player, and a completely different level will be with arbitrage bets and another with a percentage fixed rate. However, in each case it can be considered that we are trading in rather high or high-middle numbers. An advanced player must have an adequate budget, whether it is built from low numbers or available right from the start. For players, betting for recreation, the situation is different and extremes can occur. In this group there are players who have a low budget and bet, for example, €10 on a match or on an entire combo bet coupon. At the other extreme are players betting huge sums with many zeros, these sums in the long run are of course lost by such players without discipline. Thus, the conclusion comes to itself. The sheer size of the gambling budget does not yet prove that these are professional betting. However, in most cases, the budget will vary, with higher values in professionals, and certainly the quality of management of available funds will be at a completely different level and with a different discipline.
Mistakes made by beginners who are interested in professional betting
This paragraph is most relevant to beginner players who pin some hopes on the industry. For those betting for fun, these points are not very important. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with betting for fun, especially if it’s not a problematic game with stakes too high for one’s ability. To the point, so what classic mistakes do players make at the beginning of their adventure, which stand in the way and block further development in the world of sports betting.
Emotions
The first, and perhaps it will not be an exaggeration to say that the basic problem that stands in the way of reaching a higher level is problems with emotions. Some of these are certainly manageable and correctable, especially as the player does not yet have bad habits. However, certain personality traits do not predispose you to professional or even recreational betting; if, for example, you had a problem gambling in a casino and are now trying your hand at sports betting, this may not be a good solution. Trying to play off of each other, compulsively following bets placed are certainly not traits that will help you get high in sports betting. Advanced players need to approach the subject in a balanced and composed manner. Excessive emotions in any situation will do their job and eventually destroy an overly emotional player in terms of betting.
Sympathies
This subsection is somewhat related to the previous one, but it is very common and certainly deserves a separate discussion. Cheering and betting are obviously strongly connected. It is not without reason that the main place where bookmakers advertise, after the Internet of course, are sports stadiums, jerseys of teams of various sports. Many of the customers obtained in this way are sports fans, who may (but don’t have to) bet according to their sports sympathies rather than facts, even if there is a value bet on the opponent they will bet on their team. In general, of course, this is nothing wrong! Probably millions of fans around the world do this, as long as the stakes are low there is no problem. However, this article focuses on professional betting and here there is no room for being guided by any sports sympathies. It seems obvious, but it is always worth mentioning, because sometimes many beginners do it even unconsciously betting on their beloved team.
Inappropriate betting sites
Choosing bookies that are not suitable, not designed for advanced play, is another of the mistakes of beginning players trying to increase their level. It cannot be said unequivocally that this is a conscious mistake. Most bookmakers ads are recreational sites that tempt players with beautiful graphics, great and high bonuses and engaging ads. Note that professional bookmakers, often offer only small promotions or none at all and often graphically stand apart from recreational sites. Also, the number of sharp bookmakers is much smaller than soft. No wonder, most players are recreational. You must remember that these sites strongly differ from each other in the height of the odds, limits (when you win at a soft bookmaker you will quickly get limits to your account). So, when choosing a site to place your bets, you should pay attention to hard facts and mathematics rather than beautiful graphics and high bonuses.
Budget management
Thoughtful and rational budget management is extremely important and emphasized by all advanced players. Many novice players have a very big problem with this. Lack of budget discipline can destroy even the best typer. Good types won’t help when the bankroll is poorly managed. The other way is better, during a black series of types, proper management of your bankroll will allow you to minimize your losses significantly, which in the long run will allow you to get back on the winning track. However, one could debate for a long time which is more important, but it seems not worth it, because that is not the point. So it can be swteirled that good budget management is as important as all the other factors above, and taking one factor out of the puzzle can bring down the castle. So it’s a good idea to set yourself a clear strategy and budget management from the beginning, so that over time it will be a routine and not an effort to control yourself from other than the set activities.
Where do professionals place bets
In a previous paragraph, saying that beginners often choose inappropriate betting sites that limit players and have low odds, which, of course, over time can only lead to failure or a limit. So what sites do professionals choose to make sure their strategies have a chance of success? They are certainly not driven by beautiful advertisements, starting bonuses alone. They are guided by high odds, sites that do not limit winners, bonuses are of course welcome, but not as important as for beginners. But let’s get down to specifics. So where do advance players bet?
Betting Brokers
The main and actually obvious choice of advanced players are bet brokers. Sites of this type have advanced software from which you will be able to bet from a single system with many sharp bookies and betting exchanges. There are also options to open accounts with individual bookies such as PS3838 (formally Pinnacle). In the vast majority of cases you can’t register with these bookmakers yourself, it’s only available through a broker, an example being BETISN, one of the leaders and largest bookmakers when it comes to football. Reputable brokers do not limit the winners, they have offers with the best odds from exchanges and sharp bookmakers, and often offer promotions. Among the biggest and best brokers on the market that any advanced player will mention first are Asianconnect and Vodds. Their systems have the strongest offerings in the industry and implement instant payouts. The possibilities offered by these types of software cannot be overestimated. No wonder they are a must-have item for the professional betting player.
Betting exchanges
Exchanges are another place where professional players bet or trade odds. Of course, this point is somewhat connected to the previous one because most of the best sports betting exchanges such as Orbit Exchange you will only open through one of the sports betting brokers. Players look for exchanges because of the high odds, as there is no margin on odds on exchanges, there is a commission and it is equivalent to a margin. Actually it comes out to the same thing and what matters here is the amount of commission and not the margin. That’s why professional betting players choose exchanges with low commissions, such as the aforementioned Orbit or, for example, Piwi247. Sports betting exchanges also do not limit winnings. For odds-trading players, exchanges are the only place where they can execute their strategies. For everyone else, they are one of the pillars and a place next to sharp bookmakers to place bets on convenient terms for the advanced player.
Direct bookmakers
The above offer is basically complete, but you shouldn’t close yourself off to other options. Direct accounts with good bookies can be a complement to the above offer or even a necessity in certain cases such as matched betting strategy or arbitrage betting. In other situations exchanges and brokers seem to be sufficient. It’s also worth bearing in mind that when talking about bookmakers in general we don’t mean all bookmakers. Soft bookmakers are excluded from this group, and they are the most numerous. We are talking about solid bookie sites that offer good odds and acceptable limits, which, of course, can’t be as high as on exchanges and agents, but should allow you to play fairly freely, at moderate to medium-high stakes. A good example here is Penta88, which, in addition to good odds, has acceptable limits in relation to the competition and additionally offers many nice bonuses.
The best sports for professional betting
We have to disappoint you. There is no definite answer to this. Many gamblers have different strategies, and different strategies can be matched to different sports. You can win and lose betting on football as well as cricket. A large group of players try to search for more niche events, such as lower and exotic leagues, as there is a greater chance of a bookmaker making a mistake than in the big leagues. But there is also the other side of the coin, as the margin on exotic sports/leagues is usually a bit higher (precisely because of the danger for the bookmaker). There is also a group of players for whom the only thing that matters is value bet, regardless of the sport, but without knowing much about the sport it can be difficult to determine the real value. As you can see there are more questions and variables to rationally answer. Each professional betting player must find his own way in what he feels best at and what simply works.
Pros and cons of being a professional player
Like all jobs and activities we know, being a professional betting player, regardless of the strategy adopted, generates numerous pros and cons. However, it is worth bearing in mind that what may be an advantage for one person may not be for another, the same with the disadvantages and therefore for one player being a professional will be a dream come true and for another it may be an unacceptable occupation. Which way the scales tip depends entirely on the individual characteristics of the player. For our part, after many years of betting, as well as observing markets and contacts with other advanced players, we can draw some conclusions and present our view on this matter. So what are the pros and cons of being a professional in sports betting?
Freedom
Possible higher earnings
Development
Stress
Alienation
Variability
It seems that the above points are so obvious that they do not need to be described too extensively to anyone. It’s obvious that not having a boss and therefore being able to choose when we have free time is a big plus, and although stress is mentioned in the disadvantage column, on the other hand not having a boss also reduces stress. As you can see, nothing here is obvious and these pros and cons should be tuned to one’s own characteristics. What is obvious is the much higher possibility of higher earnings, since it depends on us what strategy we choose and what capital to start betting. The personal development of one’s own action and not that of the boss is also tempting. On the other side we find stress, alienation and volatility. Stress, for some may be lower by possible freedom, depends on the balance. Possible alienation through less contact with people, after all, today betting is done from the comfort of home via the Internet. The last of the disadvantages mentioned above is the volatility of the markets. This industry is extremely volatile, which can also be a plus rather than a minus for some people.
As you can see for yourself, it was hard for us to objectively justify the points in this section due to the fact that nothing here is obvious. What is a plus for another player can be a minus and vice versa. One player will thrive in a dynamic environment with freedom. While another will prefer the so-called standard life with sports betting as an add-on because the professional game will generate more stress than the reduction of stress by not having a boss over. For everyone, the proportion will be different. We, however, approached this based on observation of the characteristics of most of the players we know and averaging.
Strategies of professional betting players
There is no one universal strategy that professional players follow. We have tried to collect them here in one place and describe them. We have chosen them based on the interest of professional betting players, the number of searches on the Internet, observations from discussion forums as well as our own experience and friendly professional players. Of course, all the strategies have their secrets, which no successful player will reveal, since it can be said with a high degree of probability that probably it must have taken such a player a long time and perhaps cost a lot of capital to develop a successful strategy. So into the works! So what strategies are used by professional betting players who know their stuff?
Arbitrage betting
We placed arbitrage betting at the beginning of the compilation due to the fact that it is largely dominated by informed players. Large initial capital makes beginner players without a large bankroll abandon this strategy. In principle, it’s no wonder, since a return rate of 0.5-2% per bet requires a larger bankroll, or its laborious construction from a low level. This does not change the fact that it is one of the few tactical advanced players. It can also be seen from the amount of surebet software on the market that there is interest in it. However, personally, I will admit that it seems that over the past many years some players have moved on to other strategies due to lower returns on such bets than in the past, among other things, due to far fewer odds errors by bookmakers as well as slower odds changing systems. But despite this, arbitrage betting is still alive and used by a certain group of professional betting players.
Fixed % stake
This is a strategy that is also often used by advanced players is based on a flat % budget rate. The percentage is fixed, while the stake changes with the budget. Higher the budget higher the stake, the budget decreases the stake decreases. This is a simple but very succesful strategy that increases profits in the case of good bets and minimizes losses in the case of a black series. Older gamblers will surely remember how many years ago the legendary bookmaker Pinncale(PS3838) began publishing solid articles, studies related to betting. It also examined players strategies in the long term. The fixed % rate just discussed performed very well, as one of the best possible strategies. In my opinion, it also seems to have a real, rational basis and positions this strategy very high.
Fixed stake
This is probably the most well-known betting strategy. I remember encountering it on one site associated with the soccer betting community many years ago. Most of the dials were betting this way. Admittedly, it’s not a major strategy for professional bettors, but it had to be included, if only for its previous flat % strategy (from which it’s a bit riskier for black series) as well as its popularity among players. Besides, it is still used to some extent and is certainly much more effective than no strategy at all. On many bookmaker sites in the settings, you can set a default stake, which will be displayed immediately after clicking on the given odds, this is possible on any Mollybet software as well as directly at bookmakers such as BETISN, Singbet and others.
Progression
This is a highly risky strategy unless you know exactly what you are doing and at each stage of a given progression sequence know what to do in case of problems. It is not a recommended strategy for most beginners, even though it may seem encouraging at first glance. It is worth trying progression to start with low stakes. Progression involves doubling the stake after each losing bet with odds of around 2 to make up for the entire previous bet and make 100% profit. If the second bet is unsuccessful, the third bet is also doubled to cover the two previous losing bets. The pattern goes on in the same way, with wins tending to involve a fixed stake, although this strategy has various modifications. Rational professional betting players using this strategy have a large budget to secure multiple levels of increasing stake in case of a black series. They also bet on sites where there are high stake limits to avoid hitting the limit at a certain stage, and they also bet on popular high-limit sports and leagues for this reason. Progression is also sometimes used in casino games.
Examples of professional betting players
It’s clear that most big, nimble players prefer silence to publicity. It is perfectly understandable that this could raise too many questions. If other players became aware of some niche winning strategies it is very likely that over time, in fact quite quickly, they would no longer be applicable, as too many people betting similarly could cause too much fluctuation in lines and odds. Remember, most professional bookies are based on a dynamic odds model, so that a given amount of cash on an event can cause odds disturbances in that particular match, as well as prepare the bookmaker to issue even sharper lines in the future. The obvious thing is that a professional player will not pursue such situations.
However, not everyone likes silence. Or sometimes it’s already so big that the issue comes out on its own. A good example would be professional betting player Billy Walters, his group and other betting syndicates. Precisely the most well-known cases involve bet syndicates. You can read about it on our site, about examples of exposed groups. Getting back to the topic, these types of groups increase the leverage, often to large proportions, turning often huge cash of many players in the group. Sometimes you hear questions about whether syndicates are legal? Yes they are, as long as they don’t break the law. If you read our article from the link above about such groups, you will see that some of them have been linked to buying and selling matches. In such a situation, of course, it’s not legal. In any other, everything is fine, you can easily join groups and develop a common strategy for the common good!
Is it easy to become a professional?
It may not sound very optimistic, but the answer is no, it is not the easy way. If it were, so many players would not be losing out on bets. Of course, you can exclude the typical recreational players and leave the professional ones and those who want to have good results. Then the situation looks a little better. Players who really want to will certainly have it easier, but it still can’t be said that it will be easy. But education and awareness of what and where to bet can only help. Note that the vast majority, in fact well over 95% of bookie are recreational, limit sites, focused on player failure, Professional bookmakers are a few dozen on the market with their business model accepting winnings and based on high turnover and not just player failure. This alone shows the structure of players, most are recreational. However, there are still many players making it in the professional betting markets, so nothing is lost, almost anyone can become a professional betting player. We will not elaborate further because the answer to this question is contained in all paragraphs of this exhaustive text, it would just be a duplication of what has already been said. We hope that our site and all the knowledge we provide will help you become a better, informed player!